It’s the health-care law, stupid, not “Obamacare”

You expect the news in The Denver Post to be fair and accurate, as opposed to the writing in most blogs, which is usually gossipy, free-wheeling, and, with luck, accurate. As to fairness on most blogs, forget it.

So if you’re a journalistic outfit like The Denver Post, and you’re operating a blog like The Spot, you face conflicting priorities. You want to post stuff that’s easy to read and talk about but you definitely don’t want to undermine the journalistic credibility that separates you from the blogging masses-especially if your fair-and-accurate news reporters are the ones doing the blogging, as is mostly the case on The Spot.

One really good way to undermine your journalistic credibility is to use political propaganda as descriptive terms for bills or laws.

I did some bean counting and documented a small, but meaningful, way that this is happening on The Spot.

The Post’s blog is sporadically using the term “Obamacare” as a synonym for the federal health-care law.

It’s one thing to report the term “Obamacare” as part of a quotation or within quotation marks but to use it as a descriptive term, no. You don’t want to do that.

If you’re thinking this is no big deal, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. “Obamacare” is an inaccurate and partisan salvo, and coming from a reporter, working for a publication that cares about accuracy and fairness, it looks sloppy-not to mention the fact that this kind of term in news reporting, even on a blog, makes The Denver Post appear to have a hidden agenda in support of the right wing.

On the Spot, during this calendar year, I found 15 articles using “Obamacare.” Of these, it was used nine times, inappropriately, as a synonym for the health-care bill or law. In the remaining six articles, the term was used, appropriately, in quotation marks or in a quotation from a partisan. Once it was used in a Spot headline, “Don’t Worry, we’ve got Obamacare,” on March 23.

In a May 22 post on the differences between Attorney General John Suthers and his opponent Stan Garnett, the Spot reported:

“They differ on Obamacare and medical marijuana for starters.”

On May 1, the Spot reported:

“The AG’s race normally is pretty ho hum but with Suthers and Garnett disagreeing on Obamacare and medical marijuana it’s shaping up to be a battle.”

“Whether it’s ‘Obamacare’ or ‘the Party of No,’ it’s incumbent upon reporters and editors (I can’t speak for columnists and the editorial dept.) to attribute political marketing terms to a source or somehow put them in proper context for readers.

“Without going back and re-reading each post, your analysis suggests that there have been instances on the blog where that hasn’t happened in regards to the term ‘Obamacare.’ While it’s possible that the entire tenor of a post made it unnecessary or that the author assumed the audience of a politics blog was astute enough to figure it out for themselves, our goal should always be to provide clarity.”

I often see things in my favor, but I’ll take this to mean he at least partially if not mostly agrees with me.

For fun, and because bean counting is so interesting if you’re counting the right beans, I checked out how “Obamacare” is being used in the print edition of The Post.

In staff-written news articles, I found “Obamacare” in eight articles (from May 23 of this year through July of 2009). In each case, it was used appropriately–either with quotes around it, or in a quotation by a partisan. It was never used as a synonym for the health-care law.

For example, in describing a speech by Sarah Palin March 23, The Post reported that she “called the freshly passed health care reform law an attempt to drive the country toward socialism. The article quoted Palin as saying, “Mr. President, do you understand now that Americans don’t want Obamacare? And do you understand that it won’t improve our health care system?”

In the Post’s opinion articles, where fairness is not expected, “Obamacare” is used as political marketing term, without quotation marks. In an opinion column, you’d expect this and it’s appropriate. In the print newspaper, in opinion columns and editorials, I found “Obamacare” in 10 articles from May 23 of this year through July of 2009. In nine of those cases, it was used as a synonym for the health-care bill or the health-care law passed by Congress. (Columnist David Harsanyi used it in six columns, columnist Mike Littwin in two, and columnist Susan Greene in one). I found it in one Post editorial, used within quotation marks. Once it was used in a headline (“Repeal Obamacare? Unlikely”) on a Harsanyi column. (If I were an editor, even on the opinion page, I wouldn’t put “Obamacare” in a headline, because it’s not factually accurate and therefore not right for any headline.)

In any case, with the exceptions I cited in the Spot blog, the Post is treating the term “Obamacare” as you’d want it to, allowing its use in opinion articles but not using it as a descriptive term elsewhere.

If you read the Spot, especially more recently, you see writing that’s fairly similar, if more chatty and quirky, to what’s in the print newspaper. I think the Spot blog should follow the standard described in Sunday’s New York Times by Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson:

“Blogs are an important part of our news report. On big, running news stories, like the oil spill, the earthquakes in Haiti, the elections, and so forth, they offer readers the most important, up-to-the-minute developments….While the opinion side of The Times also has blogs, the news blogs exist to report and analyze, not to offer slanted ‘takes.’ Times blogs are never personal diaries. All of our blgos are carefully edited, and we apply the same standards for accuracy and fairness to them.”

Just because opponents seem to have coined the phrase doesn’t mean it isn’t a good descriptive, short-hand term.

There’s precedent for treating policy nicknames this way. “Star Wars” was a pejorative term when Democrats used it about Reagan’s missile defense, but after a while it became the best way to describe it quickly, at least in headlines, i.e., “Star Wars test fails again.”

There are slanted terms journalists should avoid outside quotes and context (Death Tax, anyone?), but I don’t think Obamacare is really one of them.

Hillarycare was Hillary’s plan. What is referred to as “Obamacare” was not Obama’s plan. It is shorthand that is inaccurate. But both are ways of attacking a plan without spending any energy explaining–or understanding–what it is.

Star Wars had the same flaw–although at least that name implied the reality it was really just a game, not something that had a reasonable possibility of success.

If I remember correctly, Rand Corp is pretty corporate friendly but sometimes comes up with good research.

Few Health Reform Options Would Have Covered More People at Lower Cost Than New Law

The recently enacted federal health care reform law provides health insurance coverage to the largest number of Americans while keeping federal costs as low as reasonably possible, according to a new analysis from the RAND Corporation.

The term may evolve into something more neutral, but it was intended to be pejorative. And it remains so in my view because it attemps to reduce a complex law with wide support into a remnant of the president’s personality.

The phrase “Obamacare” wasn’t created as a short cut to describe HCR and I don’t see reputable journalists using that phrase. I don’t see Democrats using that phrase. I typically only see that phrase used by people that are vehemently opposed to the health care reform bill.

To pretend otherwise is kind of silly. Then again, I’m still calling the Tea Party fanatics “Tea Baggers” but according to RG’s theory, that’s a good descriptive, short-hand term so I guess it’s all good.

you’ve never made anything up before so your word is good enough for me.

On the larger topic, I wholeheartedly disagree. I’ve never seen that phrased used in print, on television, by talk show and politico pundits or politicians in a way that was remotely positive. I agree with Ralphie who probably summed it up best for me–it seems to be a pejorative that I’d like to see reputable people using less, not more.

How hard is it really just to call it the health care reform bill? I mean really, reform usually implies something good and it sounds a hell of a lot better than the implication the Republicans are attempting with their nifty phrase that some Democrats seem downright eager to co-opt.

Why do we suck so much at framing in this Party and why are we always so willing to immediately cede to something shitty rather than come up with something on our own?

Republicans are always better at creating media-friendly soundbites, talking points, and nicknames. It’s partially because they don’t care if they’re half-truths or extremely simplified, just as long as it serves their purpose.

For all of the whining from Democrats about Rahm Emmanuel as Obama’s COS, he’s really just trying to play more by the Republican rulebook. They’re not afraid to play hardball–even if it means playing with the truth.

Health care reform could mean anything. I think it is important so that we can give credit where it is due to legislation that will drive down the cost of medical care, cover millions of people and reduce the deficit simultaneously. I want to make sure that credit is given where it is due.

Of course, since the government already runs the VA, Medicare, the military Tri-Care (the three highest delivery systems in customer satisfaction, BTW)and pays for health care for all government employees from your senator to all of our soldiers and their families to your gardener at the local schools, and indirectly pays for it through all the prime contractors (McDonnell-Douglas-Boeing-Whatever), Halliburton, Whomever, and then their sub-contractors like Fedex, Joe’s Machine Shop, and Office Despot………

That leaves about 1/3 of the health care economy that the government(s) don’t either pay for directly or indirectly.

I did that research about 13 years ago, so maybe something is tweaked since then, but that’s the result I came up with.

I never thought about this before, but you are right, now that I think about it, I see many articles in papers referring to legislation with right or left wing nicknames. Now that my attention has been brought to it, I will pay close attention.

the statutes of Karl, Vladimir, and Mao will be up and the FEMA camps will be in full swing. Blue-helmeted Obama Youth will be roaming the streets in their ACORN shirts driving their Government Motors smart cars en route to pick up illegal immigrants to get them to the ‘polls,’ although the Chicago-machine will have already ‘counted’ the votes…

since it’s going so well; we won according to one conservative poster recently gracing us with his presence. (I do not compare you to that troll, BTW LB, just asking a question). You know that Obamacare is used as a pejorative. I disagree with you that it’s a turd (of course I wish it went further, sorry that the options got constrained to good-for-corporate-insurers to fricking-great-for-corporate-insurers, but you get what I’m saying).

So tell me. What exactly did the war in Iraq accomplish that was worth more than 4000 American lives? Never mind the tens of thousands of Iraqis–I’ll give you a pass on those if you can justify the Americans who were killed.

I won’t argue budget deficits with people, because for seven years we fought a war completely off budget. It was all done with supplemental appropriations. If someone wants to argue deficits with me, they have to account for off-budget spending as well.

An Iraqi of that name, Carney knew, had been present at an al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8, 2000. U.S. intelligence officials believe this was a chief planning meeting for the September 11 attacks. Shakir had been nominally employed as a “greeter” by Malaysian Airlines, a job he told associates he had gotten through a contact at the Iraqi embassy. More curious, Shakir’s Iraqi embassy contact controlled his schedule, telling him when to show up for work and when to take a day off.

Regardless of whether it’s good or bad, the law reflects more than Obama’s wishes (assuming it even reflects his wishes).

The objection, I think, is to the attempt to reduce the hard-earned legislative accomplishment to a celebration of Obama’s personality. It is more than him. If you hate it, then your objection is to more than him. To associate a name-associated jingle with the health care laws is an attempt to conflate an opposition to Obama’s personality with the objection to the health care laws.

It’s not what it was. Most stories contain comments of an “editorial” nature (plus typos). And, whatever happened to asking follow-up questions and asking “why?” Also, saying it is the Administration’s fault for not coming up with a catchy name is a little like blaming the victim of an attack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or not having the right body language, etc.